Tuesday, September 26, 2006

MANILA ENVELOPEopens Tuesday, September 26, in the Worth Ryder Gallery on the campus of University of California - Berkeley. This exhbition of thirteen Metro Manila-based artists was organized by former The Living Room artist-in-residence, Jennifer Wofford. Whose brand new and rocking website is now up and running here.

In addition to MANILA ENVELOPE, her 2nd year cohorts in Berkeley's MFA Art Practice Department is presenting DIRTY LIGHT, an exhibition of their work in low light, in Worth Ryder's main space. DIRTY LIGHT features works by Joe McKay, Bill Jenkins, Kara Hearn, Lindsay Benedict, Ali Dadgar and Alicia McCarthy.

Knowledge/Skills1. Creative, flexible and able to multi-task efficiently.2. Able to communicate one's ideas in an environment that promotes debate.3. Able to assert oneself in order to become a better designer.4. Able to complete tasks with minimum supervision.

Monday, September 18, 2006

Yeah, I know. This is a late post. The Domina Jane Die Talk was three weeks ago, you don't have to tell me. It's (? - did I use the apostrophe right?) just that things have been pretty crazy lately and I haven't found any time to update this blog at all. What with all the tours and last minute errands that need to be done before I leave for my RISD college reunion at the end of the month. God save me from the pressure of meeting up with old faces and mentors from my past. I hope I don't end up pretending that I founded Google or invented Post-its like the girls in Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion just to deal with the anxiety. One of my former classmates in the Illustration department created Family Guy, for crying out loud. Ten years later, I'm still just a half insane performance artist haunting the halls of inner city Manila earning an income that - although admittedly pays the cell phone bills, still renders me unable to buy seafront property or branded luxury goods.

But I digress.

Needless to say, Domina Jane Die was divine and the evening was a smashing success. It was also the best-attended non-food related event held at the space with around forty (40) people showing up at the door. (Yes, I know, I went past the published thirty person limit. So sue me.) While waiting, the fermented agave flowed freely (thanks to Philip of 1800 Tequila) while Japanese Bondage movies were projected on the walls (thanks to the equipment loaned by Geiser/Maclang). At around 9:30PM, the show was ready to get on the road. The mistress was ready for her audience.

And if you expect this post to be a sordid account of sexual deviancy in wild abandon, you have a lot more to learn from Domina Jane Die. If I had to choose words to describe the evening, these would be it: meditative, informative, enlightening, and professional. "Sexual" would really be last on the list - if on the list at all. That night, Ms. Jane Die discussed issues of power, subjugation, and personal fullfillment, and took us all on a ride through the road map of fetishes (ever heard of furverts, pony play and messy fun?), before getting down to some good ol' audience participation flogging/bondage (below). People were so taken in by the charms and philosophies of Domina Jane Die that one of the ad folks who attended (and there were quite a few ad folks in the audience - you know who you are...) even recommended that she expand/restructure her lecture into a "team building exercise" weekend for corporate employees. Now that's an idea if ever I heard one.Read more about Domina Jane Die in upcoming issues Fudge and FHM Magazine.

The Lopez Memorial Museum and the Museum Foundation of the Philippines presents the ninth in the series Stories About Preserving Cultural Heritage on October 14, 2006, 2-4pm at the Lopez Library.

The focus of that nights event is on Jose Honorato Lozano (1821-1885), the foremost visual chronicler of 19th century Philippines and his albums. (Photo above, painting of "Ygorrotes"; Below, painting of Manila leading to San Sebastian church). Among the albums are the Ayala Album, the Nyssens-Flebus album and the Broken album. There is also the Gervasio Gironella Album in the Biblioteca Nacional de Madrid. Some distinctive features of the albums include architectural and landscape details and images of the natural riches of the Philippines.

To discuss this and other issues that cropped up the course of the albums' discovery - attribution or authentication, repatriation, dividing the albums, etc. is Ms Sonia Ner, former academician, art manager, director of Ayala Museum and executive director of Asia Society Philippines who has conceptualized and edited Jose Honorato Lozano, Filipinas 1847 and co-authored Album de las Islas Filipinas which featured two of Lozano's albums.

Fee is Php50.00 for Museum Foundation members and Php100.00 for non-members.

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

Remember Silverlens, Manila's only gallery dedicated completely to the art of photography? It's that sleek one on the 33rd floor of the Pacific Plaza Building where I had that artist conversation with Yason Banal a few months ago. Well, the gallery has moved out of there and is now onto bigger, better digs on Pasong Tamo Extension in Makati. Not only that, they've now got a website and offering commercial/photojournalism services in addition to their exhibitions. Very cool site. Very cool gallery. Good luck, Silverlens.

The Wild Bird Club of the Philippines (WBCP) is sponsoring the the 2nd Philippine Bird Festival themed "Endemik: Dito Lang sa Pinas (Only here in the Philippines)" to promote the conservation of endemic bird species, bird watching as a hobby and the responsible appreciation of nature. The Bird Festival will feature exhibits by the Wild Bird Club of the Philippines and 14 participating conservation groups and social development foundations, screenings of the award winning entries of the 2006 Moonrise Film Festival, free public lectures on bird watching and nature conservation, merchandise and an arts activity center for the young and the young at heart. The WBCP hopes to raise the bar of awareness about the unique bird life of the islands, to promote public interest in conservation and to encourage the creation of more urban parks and green spaces in Metro Manila.

"There are more than 570 species of birds in the Philippines, no fewer than 180 species are found only in the archipelago." says Bird Festival Committee Chair, Alice Villa-Real, "The endemic birds include the Philippine Pygmy Woodpecker and the White-Eared Brown Dove which are present in a number of parks and wooded areas in the core of Metro Manila," she added.

Tuesday, September 05, 2006

It's no secret that I believe the Roman Catholic Church of the 21st century has been very misguided as of late. Their restrictive policies about women's roles in Catholic institutions, their insistence on meddling in Philippine government policies and their retarded view towards contraception and homosexuality are only a few of the things that made me proudly assert my Cafeteria Catholicism. But after reading the Ateneo de Manila's "beloved" Father Reuter's defense of the accused in the Subic Rape Case, I'm now thisclose to ditching everything and going Protestant - heck, Pagan even. In an article in The New York Times, he inferred that the victim in the aforementioned case was a "seductress" simply because she was older than her attacker and claimed that she really instigated the whole thing (Um, so I guess it was also her idea to get assaulted and have her drunk immobile body dumped on the side of the road too, eh?). In addition, he called the accused, Danny Boy, the real victim here. Even bizaarely referring to him as the "baby boy". Now this is totally out of line for a man who has zero ideas about sex and even much less about sex crimes. Click here and blow your freaking mind on the words of this aging Jesuit. And to all of you out there from all the Ateneo de Wherevers: Please, I would Looooove to hear your take on this.